Super Bowl blackout caused by equipment to prevent outage

Fans and members of the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers wait for power to return in the Superdome during an outage in the second half of the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

NEW ORLEANS >> An
electrical device that had been installed expressly to prevent a power
outage caused the Super Bowl blackout, the stadium's power company said
today as it took the blame for the outage that brought the game to a
halt for more than a half-hour.

Following the announcement, the
manufacturer of the device, known as a relay, released a statement
implying that the problem was not with the part but with how it was
used.

Officials of Entergy New Orleans, a subsidiary of New
Orleans-based Entergy Corp., said the device, called a relay, had been
installed in switching gear to protect the Superdome from a cable
failure between the company's incoming power line and lines that run
into the stadium.

The switching gear is housed in a building known
as "the vault" near the stadium that receives a line directly from a
nearby Entergy power substation. Once the line reaches the vault, it
splits into two cables that go into the Superdome.

Company
officials said the device performed with no problems during January's
Sugar Bowl and other earlier events, but has been removed and will be
replaced. All systems at the Superdome are now working and the dome will
host a major Mardi Gras event Saturday night, said Doug Thornton, an
executive with SMG, the company that manages the stadium for the state.

The
power failure at Sunday's big game cut lights to about half of the
stadium for 34 minutes, halting play between the Baltimore Ravens and
San Francisco 49ers. The FBI had ruled out cyberterrorism as a cause.

Entergy's
announcement came shortly before officials appeared before a committee
of the City Council, which is the regulatory body for the company, to
answer questions about the outage.

Not long after the power
company's announcement, the manufacturer, Chicago-based S&C Electric
Company, released a statement saying that the blackout occurred because
the so-called trip setting on the device, "as set by the system
operators," was too low to allow the device to handle the electric load
that was coming in.

The statement did not name the "system operators," but the equipment was owned and installed by Entergy New Orleans.

"Based
on the onsite testing, we have determined that if higher settings had
been applied, the equipment would not have disconnected the power," said
Michael J.S. Edmonds, vice president of strategic solutions for the
company.

In a follow-up statement, Entergy said that "tests
conducted by S&C and Entergy on the two relays installed at the
Superdome shows that one relay functioned as expected and the other
relay did not." Entergy spokesman Mike Burns, who released the
statement, did not have an immediate answer when asked if both relays
had the same trip setting.

During the morning committee hearing,
City Council member Susan Guidry asked Entergy executives whether they
were "fairly certain" that the relay device was faulty.

"That is correct," said Dennis Dawsey, an Entergy vice president.

However,
when asked if the outage was caused by the design or a defect in a part
of the equipment, Entergy New Orleans CEO Charles Rice said that had
not been determined.

"The equipment did not function properly,"
Rice said. "At this particular time, based upon our analysis, we cannot
say definitively that there was a defect in design. What we do know is
that the equipment for some unknown reason at this particular time, did
not react the way that it should have."

Asked if Entergy and SMG
still plan to hire a third-party investigator to get to the bottom of
the cause, Rice said that possibility remains open.

"We'll work
closely with SMG and if there is a need for a third-party investigation,
we will do that," Rice said, adding that Entergy was also working with
the manufacturer.

Shabab Mehraeen, an assistant professor of
electrical engineering at Louisiana State University, said the relay
device is a common electrical fixture in businesses and massive
facilities such as the Superdome.

"They are designed to keep a
problem they sense from becoming something bigger, like a fire or
catastrophic event," said Mehraeen, who holds a doctorate from the
Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Mo.

The
devices vary in size, and while Mehraeen noted he was not familiar with
the specifics of the relay at the Superdome, he added, "I wouldn't be
surprised if it was bigger than a truck."

Mehraeen said the
reasons the devices fail are the subject of much academic research into
the interaction of relays with the complex electrical systems they
regulate.

"It's not unusual for them to have problems," he said.
"They can be unpredictable despite national testing standards
recommended by manufacturers."

Entergy and SMG had both upgraded
lines and equipment in the months leading up to the Super Bowl. Rice
said the new switching gear, with the faulty relay, was installed as
part of a $4.2 million upgrade by Entergy, including the installation of
a new power line dedicated solely to the stadium.

In a separate
project, SMG replaced lines coming into the stadium after managers
expressed concerns the Superdome might be vulnerable to a power failure
like the one that struck Candlestick Park during a 49ers Monday Night
Football game in 2011. That outage was blamed at least partly on a
transformer explosion.

Thornton stressed that the dome was
drawing only about two-thirds of its power capacity Super Bowl night,
and said typical NFL games in late August or September can draw a little
more.

City officials had worried that the Super Bowl outage might harm New Orleans' chances of getting another NFL championship game.

But
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell downplayed that possibility after the
outage, saying the NFL planned to keep New Orleans in its Super Bowl
plans. Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the city intends to bid for the Super
Bowl in 2018.

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manakukewrote:

Restart is not a push button and go affair. Safeties are necessary to avoid inadvertent damages on start up.

on February 8,2013 | 07:53AM

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Lena_7967wrote:

Tom Brady did it... He pulled the plug.

on February 8,2013 | 08:06AM

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ezridahwrote:

they borrowed it from Candlestick park from last year's Superbowl

on February 8,2013 | 09:21AM

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nodaddynotthebeltwrote:

It all seems suspicious to me because this kind of thing occurred during a 49er game in San Francisco. It seems that someone discovered a way to cause a blackout by simply turning on a lot of high power equipment at the same time to cause the blackout. Given the timing of the blackout, when the momentum had completely tumbled over to the Raven's side, it seems very suspicious to me. Also, given that a lot of people had a lot of money to lose on this whole affair I wouldn't doubt that someone or a group of people decided to take matters in their own hands and game the system by causing a blackout. It is actually rather easy for a group to orchestrate a blackout by simply timing their sudden high power usage to cause a surge. Just saying...